The race against time never ends
When Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile in 1954, the world was stunned. No man can run that fast, was the thinking of the day. Then he did.
More than 60 years later, another milestone on the cusp of being broken has reignited discussions about just how fast our feet will carry us. A sub-two hour marathon has remained elusive despite significant advances in training, nutrition and footwear. With both Nike and Adidas backing scientific teams determined to make it happen, we’re closer than we’ve ever been to breaking what was once considered the impossible.
At first glance, running a marathon below the two-hour threshold doesn’t seem too daunting. The world record was set by Dennis Kimetto in 2014 at 2:02.57. So it’s simply a matter of shaving off 2.5 per cent. But for an already elite pack of runners, who are surrounded by the best coaches, best gear and best training conditions, even a few seconds faster is a tall order.
That hasn’t stopped running geeks around the world from weighing in on what needs to be done to drop those pesky two minutes and 58 seconds.
Guy Thibault, director of Sport Science at the Institut national du sport du Québec (INS Québec) thinks it’s not a matter of if it can be done, but when.
“It will be difficult, but I strongly feel it will be possible,” said Thibault who has spent the last 30 years studying the probability.
What will it take to break the barrier?
A sub-two hour marathoner needs to be a highly trained, slightly built physical specimen with superior endurance and aerobic capacity, Thibault says. Some of these physiological components can be achieved through a well-designed training program and some are the result of a good genetic pool.
Combined, they paint a picture of someone who is literally born to run.
But finding the right runner is only half the problem. The other half is determining what kind of external conditions are needed to get the job done. According to a recent article by a research group out of the University of Colorado in Boulder, the key to a sub-two hour marathon is matching the right runner to the right conditions.
This winning combination is all about optimizing running economy, defined as the rate at which metabolic energy is consumed at a given speed. More simply put, good running economy burns less energy even as the runner approaches the maximum desired speed or pace.
Factors that negatively effect running economy include air and wind resistance, temperature, shoe design, body weight and the route, all of which the University of Colorado study addresses.
To minimize the resistance that results from air pushing against a runner, the researchers suggest employing a drafting regimen similar to that used in cycling. Positioning runners at the front of the pack might seem like an easy fix, but finding runners fast enough stay ahead of someone running at a sub-two hour marathon pace is a seemingly insurmountable challenge. A solution is to have several runners of similar speed who alternate taking the lead.
It’s also necessary for the run to take place on a course protected against the wind with either an additional tailwind or downhill slope during the last half of the marathon when a runner’s pace starts to drop off.
As for temperature, cool weather helps maintain the body’s core temperature, which ensures energy isn’t wasted trying to stay cool. The more energy the body takes to regulate body temperature, the more the runner moves away from optimizing running economy.
Also important are the shoes, which need to be 100 grams lighter than the 224-gram Adidas Adios Boost shoes worn by the current world record holder, with adequate cushioning and a firm midsole to add a touch of stiffness to the shoe and ensure the proper transfer of energy from the ground up.
The University of Colorado researchers suggest that cooperative drafting combined with a tailwind or an extended downhill portion in the last half of the race is enough to sustain a pace equal to breaking the twohour mark.
The addition of the right shoes would be icing on the cake.
One problem: Part of the challenge of running a marathon is managing the conditions of the day, which are anything but predictable. So it’s likely a sub-two hour finish won’t happen anytime soon in the type of marathon held in cities around the world.
Instead, breaking the mark probably will take place in wellcontrolled conditions that feature the world’s fastest distance runners treading on a course especially designed to boost running economy while wearing individually designed running shoes.
Nike recently tested its Nike Zoom Vaporfly four per cent shoes on such a course with its own stable of high-performance runners. They covered only half the marathon distance and were faced with windy conditions, but the results were promising.
Will Nike’s team of scientists and runners break the barrier this year as promised? Who knows?
What we do know for sure is that over the next few months, even more experts will weigh in and more runners will strive to redefine the limits of physical performance.